Cheetah portrait

[Austin Thomas]

Well this is a big departure for me. I hardly ever make a picture of just the head of an animal. Personally I prefer to see the whole subject. Having seen some excellent tighter crops on this forum recently I thought I would go through the archives and see what I could find.

I have darkened the background a little more than it was in the original and cropped slightly.

1DMK3, 500mm f6.3, 1/640, -0.67, ISO100.

C&C welcome.

Austin

[Todd Frost]

Would like to see a little more of the cheetahs shoulder area. Exposure looks pretty good, love the amber eyes the big cats have. TFS
Todd

[Marc Mol]

Plenty to like here Austin, good light, detail and exposure, comp is OK with me as well. Perhaps you could lighten the eyes a tad?
TFS

[Harshad Barve]

Beautiful image Austin , you gotta love those amber eyes , compo works for me
TFS

[Stu Bowie]

"Honey eyes" The comp as is, works for me Austin, and I like how the head is angled down. Good job on darkening the BG too.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image. A narrow aperture would have further strengthened the image. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Paul Taylor]

I like it and it's certainly a very impressive catch - you must have been pretty low to get that angle so close up. Stare is great.

It's an unusual pose for a tight portrait (although not an unusual pose for a cheetah, obviously) with the head angling in down from the top right. It would be interesting to see what it would look like with a shoulder and even the top of the leg, if the foremost one is forward. A wild thought is did you look at rotating it if you have the space?

[Nate Chappell]

Really nice portrait Austin, I'd prefer just a little more dof. How did you get so close?

[Steve Canuel]

I like the detail in the facial fur. Also like the speckled BG mirroring the cheetah's fur. Can't comment from actual experience on the eyes but they appear to be natural with respect to the light angle. Though I think the cheetah head angle is as you captured, I find myself wanting to give this a little CW rotation to level the eyes.

[Alfred Forns]

Glad your going for the tight images also Austin !! All have their place and this works well.

Was only wondering about the low ISO The MK3 performs well and not a bad idea having a little extra shutters speed or more dof !!! Looking forward to more head shots !!!